Packaging, stationary, and other paper-based products are generally manufactured using sheets of paperboard or other raw paper stock that is drawn across a press, die, punch, stripping station, blanking station, or other paperboard manipulating equipment. Cartons, containers, playing cards, signs, placards, corrugated boxes, and other paperboard products are generally formed by contacting the stock with a punch or die. The methods can comprise contacting the stock with a cutting or creasing blade to generate blanks out of the sheet.
A first process of stripping out holes or sections from a larger piece of stock is generally referred to as stripping. Stripping leaves a shaped hole and a desired perimeter or outline in the otherwise intact stock paperboard. Subsequently, a second process of cutting or punching a desired shape or section of the stock entirely out of the stock, dropping, and collecting the removed portion, is generally referred to as blanking. In both stripping and blanking operations, the paperboard, cardboard, plastic, fibrous, or other material, is conveyed over a working area. The working area can generally include a flat cutting surface or a hollow female blanking area over which a blank piece of stock can be contacted with a blade, punch, or other working tool. The paperboard or stock is conveyed through such work stations on support frames, for example, on wooden, metal, paddled, or other support frames, which can be sized to conform to the size of the blank stock. The sheets can be conveyed across the stripping or blanking stations using conveyor belts, belt drives, linear motors, or other sources of mechanical driving force.
Known stripping and blanking configurations suffer from a number of drawbacks. During a stripping operation, a paperboard stock is cut and/or creased into a desired form. The cut stock can be perforated such that the desired product remains attached to the surrounding paperboard skeleton. During a stripping operation, the paperboard stock can become stuck or lodged in the die as the die is retracted from the work station. Also, during a stripping operation, the surrounding paperboard skeleton can become stuck in the stripper.
Similarly, during blanking operations, a blanking press can cause pressure on a paperboard stock such that a desired product can be removed from the surrounding paperboard skeleton. When the blanking press is retracted from the work station, a vacuum can be created between the blanking press and the product blank, thereby causing the paperboard skeleton product to become stuck in the blanking unit. Resulting jams and hang-ups in the material supply path and incomplete or faulty stripping and/or blanking operations can require valuable operator time and effort to fix. These errors can also cause lost costs due to manufacturing downtime, and can result in a loss of potentially recoverable material. A need exists to eliminate these and other drawbacks in the art.